Reports indicate that Chairman Kim Jong Un of North Korea appointed Choe Ryong-hae as new president of the Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly on April 11, 2019.

His position is the speaker of the parliament in the Free World countries, but in North Korea he is literally Number 2 only after Chairman Kim.

Choe Ryong-hae

Choe has replaced the ageing former Presidium Head Kim Yong-nam who is 91 years old.
Choe is largely considered a moderate compared with relatively militant Vice Chairman Kim Yong-chol of the Workers’ Party of Korea who also heads the Korea Unification Front.
The recent appointment of Choe appears to reflect the mind of Chairman Kim to shift the responsibility of negotiation with the United States to Choe from Kim Yong-chol.

Kim Yong-chol

This means that North Korea now might inject a more moderate atmosphere in the North Korean negotiation team with the U.S., which is good news to President Moon Jae-in who has been making an all-out effort to reduce the gaps between the U.S. and North Korea.
At his most recent meeting with President Donald Trump, Moon is rated to have made little success in his effort to bring Trump and Kim closer together to reducing the gaps between the U.S. and the North.

Kim Jong-Un

The U.S.-N.K. negotiations are in a state of doldrums and the recent appointment of Choe could help in finding a way out of the deadlocked relations between the two countries.